


in one's own fashion

by smithens



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Dating, Ficlet, Getting Together, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 22:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17068613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: “But although I have remained abstinent from these affairs, Combeferre, occupied myself with other matters, I am no fool: less than the duration of a night and day is rather soon for a man to move on from a dear lover. Is that generally so?”One relationship ends; another continues, altered.





	in one's own fashion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dashieundomiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashieundomiel/gifts).



> For Fifi's devious prompt for a dialogue meme: 31, “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

“Would you?”

One of the lamps at the wall flickered, casting them briefly into darkness. Enjolras turned from his papers.

“Would I…?”

“Come to supper, as you said — Thursday evening, perhaps. I’ve now no engagements. Or, on Friday, I’d the mind to see L'hôtellerie de Terracine once more, you could accompany me; we might dine afterward.”

The speed at which Combeferre spoke might have given away his nervousness; if Enjolras noticed, he said nothing. While ordinarily placid, Combeferre was prone to moods such as these, to flights of fancy just as to temper, and at times he lost his footing even in the banal day to day goings on. Most of his friends liked to comment upon it, particularly when his philosophy gave in to his idealism. Enjolras never seemed to acknowledge them, however, perhaps from some equally innate and unfortunate understanding that one cannot be so composed and grounded all of the time, but he made his own accommodations for the change in temperament which to Combeferre never went unnoticed. He appreciated this.

Instead of commenting, Enjolras turned aside the chair next to him, and gestured that Combeferre sit.

After a moment’s hesitation, he did so. 

They were alone in the backroom of the Café Musain. Only Louison had passed, some minutes ago, carrying washing — it was likely, Combeferre mused, that Enjolras had not noticed her.

Once he had sat, Enjolras tilted his head as if to say, ‘well?’. Even recently shorn— how recent had it been? they had fallen out of touch — his hair was long enough to fall in front of his brow. Combeferre reached up to tuck it away, but stopped at the last moment, his arm extended mid-air between them, his fingers but a breath away from Enjolras’s temple.

He said nothing, and found himself staring at his hand as though it were disconnected from his body.

“I might have guessed,” said Enjolras, subdued, and he caught Combeferre’s wrist just as he came to himself and began to pull back.

The air suddenly felt very thick, and time very slow; the hair along Combeferre’s forearms rose. He did not resist as Enjolras brought their hands together down to the table.

“When?”

There were times, with Enjolras, when Combeferre thought of all of his reading upon vitalism: that among living things and so too, men, a natural force may exist, unseen but ever present, connecting and affecting consciousness; and when he lost his intellectual skepticism on the matter, as with nary a word between them it was as though Enjolras could draw out whatever he liked, no matter how unyielding Combeferre felt.

Enjolras began to stroke his thumb along the back of his hand.

“Last night.”

“That is recent.”

“It was not sudden,” replied Combeferre, because it had not been; he had known for some time that his lover was no longer his, and that the same was true in return.

“No,” said Enjolras, and he began to fold some pages of writing against the table, curving the sheets between his fingers and creasing them neatly with the side of his wrist. Even one-handed, the result was even.

Nevertheless he abandoned the job after a moment and simply held Combeferre’s hand in his own, gazing down — looking at nothing, but with a sort of focus, as though the table had an opening through which only he could see.

“On Friday I shall attend you at the opera,” he said finally, “though I cannot promise to be stimulating company, and at supper afterward.”

“I should enjoy your presence regardless.”

Enjolras gave a small smile.

There they sat, linked, illuminated by the lamps at the walls and the dying light from the unshuttered windows: it was late in the afternoon, and though the long winter had begun to turn to spring, the days were short yet. 

After some time had passed, lost to reverie, Enjolras set his other hand atop Combeferre’s, too, and caught his eye when he started in reaction.

“You may confide in me, if you desire it.”

Combeferre nodded. He could not maintain their eye contact — Enjolras was always so intense — but he surveyed his face, torso, his arms. It was rare that he could be so comfortably still; Enjolras’s presence was an anchor.

“It is not my place,” Enjolras went on. “And I myself am inexperienced in the matter.” He lowered his gaze, as well, to their hands. “And, too, perhaps I have misconstrued your meaning.”

Combeferre’s breath caught in his throat.

“But although I have remained abstinent from these affairs, Combeferre, occupied myself with other matters, I am no fool: less than the duration of a night and day is rather soon for a man to move on from a dear lover. Is that generally so?”

He could not do anything else but nod: how like himself was Enjolras, to take a few glances and hear a few words and suddenly know the entirety of what Combeferre was feeling and the whole of his motivation.

“And have you moved on?”

“I am not using you as a means to an end,” Combeferre breathed, “if that is what you are asking.” But he knew it was not. The true question was far more frightening.

“You know it is not.”

“You know the answer to your question.”

They stared at one another.

“I moved on some time ago,” said Combeferre. “Perhaps there was never anything to move on from — we spoke past one another from the beginning, quarrelled; he is sensitive. Our views differ in many ways. Last night he mentioned you, and again this morning. I have been a terrible fool.”

But the physicality had been wonderful, despite all of that. From the look on Enjolras’s face he wondered if this motivation for staying together all those months might have been determined.

“It is over, then. You are, indeed, asking in kind — I have not misconstrued the nature of your invitation.”

“Enjolras,” said Combeferre, a lump in his throat. “The fact of the matter is thus: I cannot keep kissing other men and fancying that they are you.”

“I cannot be what he was for you.”

_That was not pity in his eyes_ , Combeferre told himself, _Enjolras does not pity_ , that _look_ was something else —

“I do not want to be what he was for you, nor to be like any other with whom you have shared such a connection. I cannot be a stopgap, Combeferre, for your hurt.”

Against his will tears sprang to his eyes, and Enjolras released him quite suddenly to thumb them away. “That is not a rejection. I have accepted already your invitation, and I must tell you that I return your sentiment and have for some time now, perhaps years. I intend only to say that, I value you, but I value myself, also. It is unfair to us both to compromise our needs, and yours and mine do differ. There is a higher call which we respond to than one another. If that is agreeable to you I should have no qualms in — in sharing my love.”

The tension in his throat and head passed. Enjolras looked at him curiously, squeezed his hand with one of his own and cupped his cheek with the other. “Your love, in your own fashion, is all that I ask for,” said Combeferre slowly, and so it was that Enjolras’s chaste smile and tender touch was more than enough.


End file.
